time to get moving

I feel like I could conquer the world right now. I just took my first ballet class in a couple of years, and it was a good workout at just the right level. I was worried that I’d feel clumsy and awkward, but my body mostly remembered what to do. I think the yoga practice has had a huge impact, strengthening and aligning my body. The Saturday morning class at OBT is crowded, but not a bad place to begin again at all.

I’m also really proud because this is my fifth class this week. Three yoga sessions, one Pilates, and ballet. I would have considered it unthinkable even fairly recently that my body could handle this, but I managed it even while fighting a cold, and without getting so stiff or sore I don’t want to get out of bed in the morning. It feels wonderful.

Dance and movement have been my main preoccupation lately, pushing out knitting and fiber arts somewhat. Which isn’t to say that I’m not knitting, just more slowly. I’m knitting a top down raglan summer top, and I’ve been making potholders out of scrap yarn. I discovered that you can do a log cabin pattern square from the center out, then use half the stitches to knit a mitered square for the other side, joining the other two sides at the end. This might not make that much sense described, so I’ll take pictures soon.

And I discovered that dye doesn’t spread as fast on loosely woven fabrics like silk chiffon, which increases the level of detail I can paint in without resist to hold the colors back. I really like this effect.

I’m taking on an additional blogging project starting sometime next week. I’ll post details when it’s up, but it’s probably not going to be terribly interesting to anyone outside of Portland.

I haven’t written on here in long enough that I feel like I’m bursting with things to say. A lot of ideas have been germinating in my head lately. I’ve been making use of the techniques in Natalie Goldberg’s writing books to get more in the habit of working ideas out on paper (mostly it amounts to “don’t think, just keep writing”, but she says it in lots of interesting ways that help prod me out of inaction).

And now I think it’s time for lunch. I baked bread yesterday, KA flour with two duck eggs and melted butter. Duck eggs are my favorite recent food discovery. They make everything light and fluffy. Mmm.